New Digital Curation Career Pathway Announced for Post-Master’s Certificate and Graduate Programs

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Students at the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University (SJSU) can now take courses that prepare them for professional careers in digital curation. The SJSU information school recently added a new career pathway in digital curation for its Post-Master’s Certificate program students. A similar career pathway will be available starting in fall 2014 for graduate students enrolled in the school’s fully online and ALA-accredited Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program.

Both programs’ pathways incorporate courses recently added to the school’s curriculum, including two foundation courses: Digital Curation; and Tools, Services and Methodologies for Digital Curation.

Courses in the digital curation pathway will introduce students to an emerging field within the information profession. Lecturer Alyce Scott, faculty advisor for the new digital curation pathway in the Post-Master’s Certificate program, says the field surrounding digital data is growing and information professionals are a perfect fit to fill the role of digital curator.

“Digital data is here to stay, and there will continue to be a growing need for people with the training necessary to manage it,” said Scott.

Information professionals who work in digital curation have job titles like digital preservation manager, digital curation archivist, data research scientist, and curation tools and services developer.

Scott encourages individuals who may want to pursue a career in digital curation to look at job descriptions in the digital and data curation field to see if the skills required are of interest to them. For example, typical job descriptions seek individuals with skills in technical development of digital resources; managing digital repositories; managing activities to preserve digitized materials; and overseeing technical standards for image, audio, and video digitization projects.

The SJSU information school’s career pathways are tools MLIS students can use to choose electives and start their career planning. On the school’s web pages explaining each of the 13 career pathways, students can find out more about what they can expect to learn if they choose courses in that pathway, recommended coursework, and possible employment opportunities after graduation.

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